


da adesso fino all'eternità

by maroon



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy's Old, Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Self-Harm, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25379527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maroon/pseuds/maroon
Summary: “So,” Nile begins, sitting in the beat up Hyundai with some meatballs in her lap, still dressed in her running gear. “Sexiled, huh?”Andy nods, chewing away at her own meatballs. She points at herself. “Professional third-wheel here.”Nile nods. “Well, they’re in love.” She shrugs, and Andy raises an eyebrow at her. “What? Love makes you do stupid stuff.”Nile experiences the whole world, learns some disgusting secrets, gains another set of parents—as well as a cranky vodka aunt—and learns what it means to be immortal.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 103
Kudos: 2659
Collections: Star Crossed Immortals





	da adesso fino all'eternità

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for the comments. i'm forever grateful to people who read my drivel. you, quite literally, keep me going.
> 
> not betaed. at all. enjoy
> 
> EDIT: changed “four white people” to “four foreign assholes” because i can’t count, apparently. thank u for catchin that 
> 
> title is from [this](https://open.spotify.com/track/26OTGhDqOhNmVQLeI3W2ub?si=ve6z5oX6STiLBICjCioPgA)

**BUDAPEST IS KINDA BORING.**

Andy, aside from the times when she purposefully insinuates herself into Nile’s life, is almost always _gone_. 

Nicky tells her not to worry, but the woman’s—she’s fucking _mortal_ , now. ‘Squishy’, as they call it. She could die from a simple fall down the stairs! She could bust a hip and die from shit like, like—starvation or something! 

Nile doesn’t show that she’s worried, because it’ll worry Joe and Nicky, and they’ll hover over her even more, and it’s already bad enough that she has to share an apartment with two idiots stuck in the honeymoon phase.

(Which is _fucking wild_ , because it’s been, what, one thousand years together, give or take? Nile is surprised that they don’t hate each other’s guts.) 

Speaking of Joe and Nicky—and it’s always _Joe and Nicky_ , rarely just _Joe_ or _Nicky_ —Nile’s been dragged across continents with them for the better part of the last three months, while Andy corroborates with Copley. They’re still not taking any jobs, which is something Nile knows is because of her. Not _with her_ , at least.

They don’t even need to tell her. Judging from the looks in their eyes, and the way Nile still trips over herself when fighting alongside them, she’s still not ‘ready’. 

So, that’s why she’s on a life-changing field trip with what feels like her _parents_ , which is absurd, gaining family so soon after losing her own, but Nile guesses that’s her lot in life. She couldn’t imagine herself going at it alone, like Andy did. She’d lose her mind. 

Nile huffs and pokes at her milkshake with the bright red straw, eyebrows stitching together in deep thought. 

Nicky is reading the newspaper, something Nile has discovered he always does, the same way Joe goes out early in the morning to get him the daily paper and a pastry from some old bakery they’re particularly fond of. Nile moves on from her milkshake to her fries.

He’s wearing _glasses_ , even, and Nile knows he’s a little bit old, judging from the light dusting of grey at his temples, but doesn’t _whatever_ they have… cure _anything_? 

“Stop playing with your food, Nile.” Nicky says, startling Nile out of dipping and re-dipping her fries, but when she looks up, he’s not even looking at her. He’s moved on from the business page and straight to the crosswords.

“I don’t like their spaghetti,” Nile complains. “And the meatballs taste weird.”

“I agree,” Nicky says offhandedly, “The cook should be punished for their crimes.”

“IKEA meatballs are great. Is it any better in Sweden?”

Nicky looks up from his crossword, and Nile almost laughs at the comical frown on his face. He shakes his head before looking back down at his paper. “Remind me to take you to Rome, you heathen. _IKEA_ meatballs. Unbelievable.” 

_Spoken like a true Italian,_ Nile thinks, looking at Nicky keenly. He’s been growing out his hair—which was shockingly, a nice shade of blond—in an effort to ‘hide’ from getting recognised, which isn’t really helping, because he’s been getting looks ever since they touched down in Ferihegy. 

Joe’s been especially protective of Nicky ever since the whole Merrick debacle, but there’s nothing more hilarious than Joe trying and failing to hide Nicky from prying eyes, especially since him shaving off the beard has him catching every woman’s eyes from the States all to Hungary. 

Needless to say, _Nicky_ isn’t happy about it, either. 

Nile smiles to herself. “When’s Joe gonna be back?” 

Nicky hums, endlessly patient. If Nile had a smartphone, she’d be endlessly patient, too. But she doesn’t. So she plays with her food. “A long time yet. Budapest has never been kind to Joe and I.” 

“Never been kind like…?” Nile feels something surge in her stomach at the mention of people _not being kind_ to Nicky.

Nicky looks up at her then, before letting out a small laugh. Everything about this man is _delicate_ , she realises, save for the way he fights. When he fights, he’s quiet, intense, and sure, and everything Nile isn’t, because she’s been trained to be brash and head-on. Andy’s trying to beat it out of her. Though when Nicky fights… then, he’s like a… like a panther. 

That’s the best analogy Nile can do. 

“Oh, no. Joe wouldn’t have that,” Nicky tells her matter-of-factly, a smile on his face. Nile’s eyes are drawn to the mole on the side of his lips. “Unkind, as in, we’re _unlucky_ in Budapest.” 

Nile keeps quiet. She wants to know that the fuck _that_ means. 

Nicky catches her eyes. “It’s no big deal. One war and an invasion past and a country barely phases you. The fact that Joe always manages to get a house with such shitty plumbing _every time_ we’re in Budapest is far worse.” He shivers, “I _hate_ cold baths.” 

Nile frowns. ‘One war and an invasion’ sounds like a bad intro to an even worse punchline. 

The older man must see the curiosity on her face, because he smiles even wider, putting down his paper for good measure. He tucks his pen behind his ear, steepling his hands underneath his chin. 

“That _Subutai_ fought like an uncaged beast. Joe died about a handful of times by his hand, personally.” Another smile, fond. Nile wishes that she was as nonchalant about death as they are, but she can _still_ feel the air whipping against her face as she falls, knowing that she’ll die soon enough. “Tell him to tell you the story. He’s always such a braggart about it. Me, not so much. I was killing spies for the King.”

Nile scoffs, “Spymaster Nicky?” He retells the story as if it were about Sunday brunch and not the ushering of an empire, and Nile thinks: _that might be me someday._ Would she be as casual about it, though? Andy is mum about _her_ hand in the history of the world, Joe, not quite, and Nicky, well. Nicky tells it like they were bedtime stories. Fantastical, almost. Like _legends_. 

Maybe he thinks he’s protecting her, or maybe that’s just how he is. 

“Mm,” Nicky’s eyes go soft as he runs the pad of his finger along the mouth of his coffee cup. He takes a slow slip, then tells Nile, “Budapest saw us married, though. For a little while, during its renaissance. Then we got killed for ‘conspiring against the throne’. Whatever that means.”

Nile cradles her cheek on her palm, tilting her head to look at Nicky. She wonders how long they’ve been together, and would probably have asked, if not for Joe walking back into the café, hair windswept and looking handsomely harried. Nile feels a little bit of jealousy drip from her throat to her stomach when Joe unabashedly slides into the seat beside Nicky, arm around his shoulder and sweeping him into a deep kiss that Nile doesn’t care to watch, instead resuming her mindless dipping and redipping of her fries.

When she looks back up, the sunglasses on Joe’s face are perched on Nicky’s nose, the pale man looking pleasantly flushed. 

Nile vaguely wants to make a retching noise. 

“Nile was asking about Budapest.” Nicky tells him, threading his fingers through Joe’s. Joe takes a sip from Nicky’s coffee, humming in interest. “And I told her how you’re shit at finding safe houses.” 

Joe laughs, putting down the cup. “I blame _Subutai_ , the bastard. That guy fucked up my mojo. So I showed him up on his own deathbed. _Ha_ , see how you try to commandeer your way out of _that_.” 

“Petty old man.” Nicky teases. 

Nile shakes her head and lets Joe talk her through ordering another platter of fries. 

**PICKPOCKETING PRICKS IN MUMBAI.**

In India, Nile learns the sleight of hand, and how to cook or to _not_ cook. 

Nicky the former, and Joe the latter, though sometimes they take turns. 

Looking at Nicky, you’d never peg him as someone who would _pickpocket_ someone, but he’s freakishly good at it. They camp up near Mumbai, near ‘rich pricks’, as Joe calls them. Dressed down in jeans and modest shirts, they walk up and down the boulevard, shoulder to shoulder. 

Nile watches Nicky slither up behind a well-dressed man all but spitting into his smartphone, the vein in his neck bulging from the effort. Nile can’t quite speak Arabic yet, but she _can_ , however, understand what an entitled asshole sounds like. She shoves her hands into her pockets and frowns, watching Nicky pass by the man, pause, and walk forward into the crowd. 

It barely took ten seconds, but when Nile catches up with Nicky, he’s got a leather wallet between his hands, supple and new, from the looks of it, and stacked to the brim with cash. 

Nicky pulls out a couple of bills and fans them at his face, smiling serenely at Nile. “Why don’t we get ourselves something nice?” 

“How did you do that?” 

“What, nick this wallet?” Nicky leads them down Nariman Point, humming as he rummages through the wallet. He makes a pleased noise at a credit card, pulling it out and flipping it once. “It’s easy. Easier for a woman, I guess. Though my only base of comparison is Andy, and that woman has been stealing things even before I was born.” 

Nicky pockets the wallet, bumping his shoulders with hers. He smiles at her, reassuring and kind, but the next thing he does is anything but. “One thing that I’ve learned about being immortal is that it’s best to learn on the field.”

The man faces her, lips still pulled into that kind little smile he always has for her. “Remember: keep your hand straight and make it quick. Dinner is at eight, _tesoro_. Have fun getting home.” 

And with that, he disappears into the crowd, leaving Nile all alone in the middle of the crowded district, people crashing into her like waves the moment her companion leaves her behind. 

Nile frowns, because what else can she do? This is the equivalent of your mom throwing you into a pool to ‘help you learn’ how to swim. 

Desolate and in an unknown country, Nile vows to get back at Nicky, patting at her pockets as she shoves herself out of the throng of people that had crowded her. When she gets to what seems to be a bus stop, she looks around, shifting on the balls of her foot at the random people standing beside her. 

Sighing, she turns around and walks back into the busy crowd of Mumbai’s business district, adamant to find another asshole to pickpocket. 

**

It’s not that Joe dislikes cooking, it’s that _Nicky_ is insufferable and _fussy_ when it comes to food that he hasn’t cooked himself. It’s always ‘you could have used more salt, _mi amore_ ’ this and ‘the meat’s too tender’ that, and Joe loves him. Oh, does Joe love that incredible, fussy man, but—and there’s rarely a _but_ —

He’s so damn… 

“Joe? I have wine!” 

Joe sighs and smiles to himself, putting down the ladle and covering the pot before Nicky sweeps into the room, dressed immaculately in a loose, white dress shirt and tight, navy blue dress pants, accentuating the broadness of his shoulders and the slight curve at his waist, his ankles peeking above expensive shoes, pale and delicate. He even has a pale pink neckerchief tied around his neck, lovely even in the dingy lighting of the cheap little safe house they’ve been managing since the ‘80s. 

Who would have knew that there was such a delicate, beautiful man underneath that bushy beard and that ugly fucking chainmail? 

Well, Joe did. Not until almost half a decade later, that is, when his fussy lover finally gave in and let Joe peel him out of that lifetime. 

Joe waits for Nile to rumble in after him in that way only teenagers and young adults do, but when she doesn’t, Joe crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow at Nicky, who is still holding a bottle of wine aloft. 

“Where’s Nile?” 

Nicky’s lips curl as he saunters towards Joe, more amorous than usual, his eyes dark and filled with want. 

_Ah_ , Joe thinks, relieving Nicky of the expensive looking bottle of wine, knowing full well where they’re headed. 

“What?” Nicky murmurs, wrapping his arms around Joe’s neck and leaning in happily, Joe’s hands light on his waist. Joe can’t help but smile. If the man could purr, he would. “It was _your_ idea.” 

It _was_ Joe’s idea. Give or take eight hundred years ago, Andy left Nicky to fend for himself in China; Nicky held quite a cute little grudge after that, but it did make an excellent pickpocket out of him.

Joe just… reminded him of it, you know, as a suggestion. They’ve hardly had a night on their own since five months ago, and as much as he loves the thrill of having Nicky in random alleyways and tight closets, and as much as he likes having Nile around, he didn’t actually think that _Nicky_ of all people would do that to someone like _Nile_. 

“She’s gonna kill you.”

Nicky brushes his nose against Joe’s, looking up at him through the dark curtain of his lashes. “Mm,” he hums, leaning forward to trap the lobe of Joe’s ears between his teeth. “I’ll tell her it was all you, _la mia dolce metà_.” 

And they both know that Nile will believe Nicky over Joe. _Such is the way_ , Joe internally rescinds, grabbing his lover by the ass and hauling him up against his body, savouring the way Nicky undulates against him. 

Like a sexy worm. 

Joe groans at himself. 

“God,” Nicky sighs reverently, “How are you still so fucking _ripped_?”

“Blasphemy, _Nicolo_.” He murmurs against thin, pink lips, “And you would know,” Joe tells him, placing him on top of the rickety dinner table, thumbing at Nicky’s belt, unbearably breathless at the undying beauty underneath his palm. Alive. _Always_. “You keep me active.” 

“You are _insufferable_ ,” Nicky snorts indelicately, ridding Joe of the apron and his shirt. Joe laughs, tugging his love’s pants down and off, throwing it behind him haphazardly. 

When he looks down, Joe lets out a long, slow whistle. 

“Who am I to thank this time?”

Nicky shifts, bracing himself against his elbows, long legs perched comfortably in the curve of Joe’s arms. He giggles when Joe presses a worshipping kiss against his ankle. “One Mr. Karim Naaji.”

_"Ye’aishak_ , Mr. Naaji.” Joe lilts against the skin of his leg, hands dipping low to graze against the delicate lace that decorates Nicky’s hips, pale and blue, damn near his favourite colour. “I ever tell you you’re the hottest piece in every continent I’m in, _amiry_?” 

Nicky’s eyes are dark and playful when they look up at Joe, “Yusuf Al-Kaysani, you insatiable flirt.” 

Joe laughs and presses a kiss onto Nicky’s lips, worshipping his way down to his lover’s navel, sighing when Nicky’s long fingers curls into his hair and _tugs_. 

“You know you,” Nicky’s breath hitches as Joe parts his legs to make himself comfortable, teeth nipping at the waist of the undoubtedly expensive lingerie, “don’t have to butter me up to get in my pants.” 

“Yeah,” Joe breathes, pulling down to reveal Nicky’s slim, long cock, pressing a kiss to the head, “but it gets you hot.” 

With that, he swallows down the length before him, making Nicky arch up, but not off, courtesy of Joe’s rough palms keeping his hips in place. Nicky’s eyes flutter closed at the warmth of Joe’s mouth, a relieved sigh escaping his lips. 

“Flatterer,” Nicky moans as Joe begins to bob, curling his tongue at the crown _just so_ , attentive and sure only in the way a thousand years of mapping and remapping Nicky’s body could grant him. 

Joe sucks as he pulls himself off, hands inching from the skin of Nicky’s hips and down to cradle Nicky’s balls in his palm, giving them a delicate squeeze before moving on to push his panties aside, before pressing dryly against the pucker of Nicky’s ass. 

“Leaving me to do all the work?” Joe rasps when he releases Nicky’s member with a wet _pop_. 

Nicky, flushed red and unashamed, shrugs a broad shoulder and smirks down at Joe, his hand travelling down his own body and resting on top of Joe’s prying fingers, guiding those fingers to push in gently, not enough to penetrate, but enough to have both of them suffering in unison. “But you love doing _all the work_.” 

Joe watches his lover present himself underneath him, from those pale shoulders, dotted with barely-there freckles to the way he tips his hips into the dry press of both his and Joe’s fingers, desperate but reverent. The dress shirt Nicky’s got on is crinkled around his shoulders, hiding the rest of him from Joe’s eyes, but it doesn’t take much for Joe to remember what’s underneath it. 

His own dick is hard as a fucking steel sword, tightening his jeans in protest, but he doesn’t move to take them off, content to just stay here, letting Nicky set his pace, letting Nicky take care of them both. 

“Lube?” Joe croaks, because a thousand years past and _Nicolo di Genova_ is still the kind of man that sets him aflame, inside out. Nicky opens those cobalt blue eyes to stare at Joe, as if he’d forgotten about everything else. 

But then Nicky responds in kind, reaching into his shirt, and—

Joe all but rips Nicky’s shirt off at the sight of matching blue lace wrapped around Nicky’s muscled torso, gritting out, “It _matches_?” as if the sudden discovery physically pained him. 

And it might as well, because his dick is about to fucking _explode_ in his pants. 

Nicky grins and pulls out a packet of lubricant from the cup of the lacy bra, winking salaciously at Joe. 

A thousand years and this man still keeps him on his _goddamned toes_. 

“You fucking harlot, you,” Joe growls, taking the offending object from Nicky’s hands, unzipping his jeans to shove it down his hips, harried in a way he hasn’t been since—shit, since _six months ago_ , when he and Nicky got out of that godawful laboratory. 

His dick twitches at the memory. 

Nicky watches him with hooded eyes, tilting his head in askance. When Joe says nothing, his lover smiles, spreads his legs wider, letting out a small gasp of surprise when Joe barely takes the time to take Nicky’s panties all the way off before shoving two thick fingers inside him, keeping him from bucking his hips with one of his broad hands pinning him down. 

His love lets out a small, but stringy _oh_ , little puffs of air following as Joe practically pistons those fingers in and out of him, slick and loud and desperate. Joe watches Nicky trap his lower lip between his teeth, that urge to keep himself quiet in fear of Godly retribution still evident even after centuries. 

Joe reluctantly removes his hand from Nicky’s hip to cradle his cheek, rubbing at the hint of stubble there, before making its way to the untamed blond waves spread like a halo across the dinner table and _pulls_ enough to reveal the long stretch of his neck, making Nicky shout in a garbled, pleasured moan. 

“You fucking _dick_ ,” he squeaks, a moment later, eyes watering at the pain of Joe tugging at his hair. 

“ _Scusi_ ,” Joe teases, scissoring his fingers inside his lover. Whatever smartass remark Nicky had on his lips are drowned by the dirty groan he lets out when Joe finds _his spot_ , harshly needling at it. 

Nicky releases his hold at the table and wraps a palm around his lover’s neck, eyes hard but still so, so lovely. Kind, even when he’s demanding and harsh. Joe feels the need to bury himself inside tenfold, his whole body thrumming with anticipation. “ _Yusuf._ ” 

“ _Nicolo_ .” Joe kisses him deeply, crooking his fingers upwards to make his lover gasp against his lips, because a thousand years past and Joe can only ever be cruel to Nicky like _this_ . “ _Nicolo, alby, rohy, hayaty, omry_ ,” 

Nicky tangles his tongue against Joe’s, breathing the final piece to the overused but never unwanted admission, " _Ana ohiboka_." 

In a frenzy, Joe grins and bites at Nicky’s lips, not quite drawing blood, slick hand vacating Nicky to wrap around a delicate ankle. Nicky barely makes a noise of displeasure because he _knows what’s next_ , but it still leaves him breathless when Joe finally pushes into him, both of them groaning at finally being joined. 

“Fuck,” Joe grunts, “you’re so goddamn _tight_.” 

“Blasphemy,” Nicky gasps, shivering at the sensation of being blessedly full. 

“That _fucking_ _yoga_ you do, praise Allah.” 

The younger of the two laughs hitchingly, inching his hips down against Joe’s pelvis to get him moving. “I don’t do it for you, _Joe_.” 

“Oh?” Joe rolls his hips, gripping Nicky by the waist to keep this fussy man _still_ , grinning when the head of his cock hits at Nicky’s prostate head-on. “Are you sure, _habibi_?” 

Nicky gasps and gropes at his cock, hand wrapping around it _tight_ , to keep himself from slipping. “Okay,” he grits, the sole of his foot digging into Joe’s ass to keep him inside, and Joe runs a hand down Nicky’s flank, reassuring him. “Maybe a _little bit_.” 

Joe groans when Nicky tightens around his cock, hips grinding up and _against_ the softness of Nicky’s ass, wanting nothing more than to stay here, with Nicky warm and velvety around him, welcoming forevermore. 

“I love you inside me,” Nicky breathes, letting Joe fuck him slow and sure, the frustration that got them there shed away like water off a duck’s back. “ _Harder_ ,” 

With that, Joe grips Nicky harder, all but pulling him off and then slamming back into him, Nicky’s legs tightening at either side of him. 

From then on, it’s animalistic, because there will always be time for _making love_ , Joe all but shoving Nicky _into_ the table in his harshness to keep himself as one with his lover, leaving marks that will _stay_ against Nicky’s pale skin, both of them gasping and groaning in ecstasy. 

“Fuck, I need—” Joe grunts, palming at his lover’s waist, and Nicky instinctively places his hands on Joe’s shoulders, letting the bigger man flip him over to his hands and knees, the rickety table creaking dangerously underneath their fucking. Joe wastes no time mounting the paler man, pressing his chest flush against Nicky’s back. 

Nicky shouts when Joe breaches him, sweat dripping down his neck, though not for long, as Joe chases it with his tongue, not giving any inch as he fucks his man well and good. With a grunt, he bites at the juncture of Nicky’s neck, lavishing at the way it _does not heal_ , as it always does when _Joe_ bestows them upon him. 

“ _Yusuf_ ,” Nicky mewls, “I, I—” 

Joe pets at his hair, tugging so Nicky would look back at him. After a breathless kiss, Joe presses his forehead against Nicky’s, before reaching down to wrap his hand around Nicky’s aching prick, his other arm curling underneath Nicky’s jaw to keep him where Joe wants him. 

“Come on,” Joe tells him, gentle and sure. His hips aren’t, harsh and unrelenting as he continues to fuck into the yielding softness of his lover. “ _Nicolo_.” 

“ _Yusuf_ ,” Nicky cries, arching severely against the table, a perfect concave, his cock pulsing in Joe’s rough palm, spurting his release into Joe’s fist. 

One orgasm past and Nicky is still a demon underneath Joe’s palm, undulating and urging Joe to be _harsher_ , muttering nonsensical shit in Italian. 

“Nicky, Nicky,” Joe breathlessly begins, slamming the length of him into Nicky, “Inside?” 

Nicky’s eyes are soft when he looks over his shoulder, cheeks flushed and drunk, nodding frantically. “ _Inside_ , sì, _sì_ , Yusuf—” 

With Nicky’s hands on top of Joe’s, wrapped around the span of Nicky’s waist, Joe presses as close and as tight as he can, growling loudly as he finishes inside Nicky, _coming home_ , relieved, _familiar._

It lasts until—

“I,” Nicky groggily murmurs, squeezing once around Joe, both of them stupid and drunk from their, uh, _activities_ , “Something’s—something’s burning—?” 

Joe drops Nicky like a hot potato, shouting as he tries and fails to salvage his _sibagh_ , pants still wedged tight underneath his ass. 

Nicky cackles from where he’s laying down on the table, spent and leaking from Joe, weakly trying to open the bottle of wine he’d brought home. 

“Let’s just order in, darling. Perhaps some wine and cheese?” 

Joe sighs, shaking his head. Nile will be so pissed when she gets home. “Nile’s going to be so fucking _pissed_ ,” he groans, sniffing miserably, because it needs to be said. 

When Nicky doesn’t reply, Joe turns around, naked save for his jeans, which aren’t even _on him properly_. 

“Fucking, _ew_ —!” Nile screeches, hands over her poor eyes, and Joe reacts quickly, picking up the discarded apron and tossing it over Nicky, who is _laughing_ , the bottle of wine sloshing about in his hand. “Put on some fucking pants! _Ew_ ! Ew, Joe! _Ew_!” 

She sounds damn near in tears when she turns on her heels, screaming, “I’m _telling Andy!”_

**THE PHILIPPINES IS PRETTY, AND THE WEATHER DOESN'T MAKE ANDY'S KNEES ACT UP.**

Nile Freeman learns the beauty and frustration of immortality in the Philippines. 

She’s with Andy this time, because unlike Joe and Nicky, at least _she_ doesn’t even give an inkling that she’s _sexually active_ , which Nile is thankful for. 

Nile smiles and thanks the little girl selling her a wreath of little white flowers, handing her a _hundred peso_ bill. She’s still getting used to using different currencies. Hell, she’s still getting used to being in different parts of the world every two months or so. Andy instructs her to hang the little wreath on the rear view mirror, like car dice. 

She likes the Philippines, though. Crowded, sure, but sunny and somewhat windy, and she can wear all the tank tops she wants. Andy tells her she’s taking Nile to this place called _Palawan_ , and Nile is already looking forward to getting Booker a postcard. Maybe one of those key chains. Nicky and Joe get absolutely _nothing_. 

Andy takes her everywhere and nowhere, random places with old buildings stood on them, muttering about this and that. They never stayed in the Philippines for too long, Andy tells her. Says they didn’t need four foreign assholes intervening in their business any more than they already did. 

Nile props her socked feet up the cheap covers of the cheap hotel room, reading up on Philippine history on the phone Andy let her have. It’s encrypted to hell and back, but Andy still won’t let her have any social media and the like until she’s sure Nile won’t randomly blab about what they’re up to. 

Which is unfair, if you ask Nile, because Joe has his Twitter and Nicky—and he proudly admits it—has his Pinterest. 

“Did you ever meet this, um, _Jo-say Rizal_?” 

Andy’s eyes crinkle in amusement. “It’s _José Rizal_ , kid. And no. Joe and Nicky did, though.” 

The young woman makes a face. “Let me guess, Joe didn’t like that.” 

“Joe rarely likes _any_ man around Nicky, Nile. You should know that by now. They lost half _our_ money to the short bastard. Made off with Nicky’s shirt, too.” 

“That must’ve been hilarious.” 

Andy shakes her head, opening a window and sticking a cigarette between her lips. “Nicky’s a shit poker player. Wears his heart on his sleeve.” She looks over her shoulder, pointing at her rucksack, “Mind getting my laptop? The boys are about to call in,” she checks her watch, cigarette still hanging off her lips. “In ten?” 

Nile puts down her phone and pads over to the chair, opening it and pulling out Andy’s busted up _Dell_. 

She’s seen Andy use it a handful of times, mostly to call the other guys, so when she opens it, she’s greeted by the usual photo of the four of them, Andy’s arms hooked over Joe and Nicky, Booker plastered against Nicky’s side, pink in laughter, arms wrapped tight around Nicky’s waist. 

They look happy, absolutely wasted _and_ happy, also dressed to the nines as they are. _Fancy_ , Nile thinks. 

“Vegas, 2017.” Andy says from where she’s leaning on the sill of the window. “They got married by an Elvis impersonator. Booker hooked up with this tall fucking guy in swarovski studded thigh highs. He bitched about glitter underneath his nuts for five fucking years.”

Nile smiles, fiddling with the cursor, clicking it over Nicky’s pixelated mole. “Have Nicky and Joe always been like…”

The older woman makes a vague gesture with her hand. “Like _that_?” 

The cursor moves from Nicky’s mole to Booker’s grin. Painstakingly, she tries to count Joe’s rings. “Yeah.” 

“Since _forever_ ,” Andy admits tiredly, her voice laced with affection, “I’ve given up on thinking it’s gonna wear off, kid. And you should, too.” 

“Okay.” After a second, Nile moves the cursor to run over Andy’s smooth face, young and carefree, even just for a night. “And you?” 

Andromache the Scythian hums in askance. 

“What did you win?” 

Andy grins wickedly, her cigarette already half-smoked, hair wild, crow’s feet at the sides of her blue-green eyes. “I won a fucking Maserati.” 

**

“Nile!” Nicky and Joe greet, pressed together like always, Joe’s arm around Nicky’s shoulder. Joe’s beard has made a comeback, and Nicky’s hair is now golden, somewhat pinkish. _Strawberry blond_ , Nile thinks. They both don’t look a day over thirty. 

“I am also here,” Andy remarks, dry as the Sahara, from her place on the other bed, hair bundled into a towel atop her head, flipping through channels. 

“Ah, yes. How are you, grandma?” 

Andy narrows her eyes, muttering: “I’ll stick you like a pig, Joseph. Just wait and see.” 

There’s no heat in it, just immortal fondness. 

“How is the Philippines treating you, _tesoro_? Is Andy feeding you well? You look gaunt. I told you, _Yusuf_ , we should have—” Nicky rants, and Nile rolls her eyes. Not even ten minutes and he’s already fussing and clucking like a chicken. 

“I’m _fine,_ Nicky. And so is Andy. No broken hips or the need to stop because of arthritis yet.” 

“You know what? I’ll stick _you_ like a pig, kid, see how you like it.” 

“Cranky.” Nicky _tsks_ , “Are we still reconvening in Italy?” 

Joe cuts in, a big smile underneath his bushy beard, eyes only on Nicky, “Nicky’s excited. He’s haranguing me about the villa already—”

“It’s not my fault we haven’t seen each other nearing a _year_ , _Andromache_.” 

“Shut up,” Andy whinges. “Ugh, _shut up_.” 

“You guys have a villa?” 

With that, Andy grins like a cat that’s got the canary, and Joe begins to groan, “Correction, Nile: _Nicky’s_ got a villa.” 

Nile raises an eyebrow. Andy continues, regardless of the way Joe is making hurt little noises, and bolstered by Nicky’s laughter. “ _Lorenzo de’ Medici_ , Nicky?” 

“You’re telling me Nicky had _de’ Medici_ as a sugar daddy?” 

“No he didn’t!” Joe crows angrily, gaping at Nicky, who is trying to stifle his braying laughter behind a fist. “He did _not_ ! There was no sugar _involved whatsoever_!” 

Andy laughs, smiling crookedly. “Nicky was pretty, and it was the goddamn Renaissance.” With a smile, she shrugs. “I don’t know all the details. Something about being Giulio’s _governess_ or some shit. I was back in England. Booker knows, though, so you ask _him_.”

A silence passes as Andy only realises what she’d said, but thankfully, Joe doesn’t let it sit. 

“ _Palawan,_ huh?” He asks, and Nile jumps onto the new topic gratefully. 

“Yeah. There’s a _lot_ of beaches.” 

Nicky smiles at her, kind and gentle like he always is with her. Nile realises that she _misses_ them, as gross as they are. Two months apart seems like _so much_ , but she’s still got immortality to look forward to. “Send us a postcard, _tesoro_.” 

Joe grins, rubbing his hand over Nicky’s shoulder, as if to comfort him. “Booker loves _Palawan_ . Even though we completely cocked that shit up with the Japanese, he loves _Palawan_.” 

Nile smiles. One more thing to look forward to a hundred years from now. “I’ll have to hear that story later.” 

Andy sighs from beside Nile, fiddling with the remote, passively watching a _telenovela_ about some dude fighting bad guys with his friends. “Booker’s gonna have a ball telling you all about it, kid.” 

**ITALY, ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT IT’S HOME.**

Nile touches down alone in Genoa, Andy having taken a pit stop in Florence, something about shit Copley needed. 

She adjusts her bag over her shoulder and looks around, eyes hovering slightly at the little family across from her, a single mother and her two sons, all of them sharing smiles. Nile wonders if her brother misses her; knowing the little shit, he’s probably glad she’s gone, because that means there’s no one else hoarding the PS4. 

Suddenly, she feels out of place in Genoa, feeling the utter isolation of being _Nile Freeman_ in the middle of hundreds of strangers, foreign and so damn _othered_ in her scuffed boots and thrifted bomber jacket. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t get to dwell on it because her eyes land on Joe, standing across from her with his round sunglasses perched dangerously low on his nose, beard thick and bushy and _big_ , hair shorn close to his scalp, dressed in a sharp, light grey suit that looks way too expensive to be near _anyone_ in this dingy little airport. 

In other words, he looks absolutely nothing like the man she first met. 

He’s holding a little sign aloft, and Nile feels a smile creep up her face when she reads what’s on it. 

_Sahara Rivers_. 

So. Fucking. _Stupid_. 

“Joe!” Nile calls out, laughing when Joe puts down the card to envelop her in a bear hug, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her nose against his jacket. He smells the same, though. Like spice, intertwined so closely with the scent of sea breeze. 

_Nicky_ , she thinks. 

“How was road tripping through Southeast Asia?” 

Nile lets Joe take her bag, leading her out of the airport, seemingly oblivious to the eyes on him. “Hectic. And hot.” 

“Have fun?” 

“No,” Nile murmurs in a _duh_ tone, “Andy had me running up and down, doing errands for her. If you can call getting her a cup of coffee it ‘training’.” 

Joe side-eyes her, empathy written all over his face. He scratches at his beard, humming thoughtfully. 

“You want to go to the port?” He says, a complete non-sequitur. Nile looks at him, dressed like a million fucking bucks, then looks at her own damn self, dressed in hand-me-downs and not much else, and raises an eyebrow. 

Joe scratches at his neck. “Nicky’s still getting the, uh, the villa… all sorted out.” 

“And? I don’t care. You guys have six _bathrooms_ , and I’m fucking _tired_ of sharing a shower with Andy.” Nile shivers, “She _sheds so much_.” 

A beat. “Also, you guys have a pool.” 

Joe nods. “We do have a pool.” 

“And I want to take a nap.” 

“I can see that, Nile, but Nicky—” 

“Please, can we just get home? _Please_?”

Sighing, Joe hikes Nile’s bag up higher on his shoulder, pulling out a set of keys from his pocket as they neared a seafoam blue convertible. Nile’s eyebrows start climbing higher at each revelation that she’s being walked through. 

In Italy, Nile learns of her _historical_ and passive potential. 

Joe revs up the car as Nile takes her time acquainting herself with the beautiful, _beautiful_ car, hands gliding smoothly across the leather seats. 

“This is such a pretty car,” Nile says, sliding in shotgun, nodding at Joe when he hands her a pair of sunglasses to put on, seeing as he’s dropped down the roof to let the Genoan sun in. 

The older immortal smiles and scoffs, palming the steering wheel as they peel out of the parking lot. 

Joe fiddles with the radio until something sweet and Italian pours through, humming along as they drive down to the port, Nile watching the grand architecture pass by with wide eyes. She wouldn’t expect Genoa to be so pretty just by what she was greeted. 

Nile blinks when they slow and stop in front of an old looking building, Joe already out the car before she can say anything else. Nile only follows because _she doesn’t know_ this place, shaking her head at Joe when the man leads her inside, her eyes widening even more at the beauty of the building, its grand-standing old walls, the sheer history it yells at her. 

“—build this thing… Nicky was trying to get me work at the _Galleria_ , get my little doodles up there, you know?” Joe, having shed his sunglasses, looks at Nile, who is obviously not looking at him. “Nile?” 

As if rising from underneath the surface of the water, Nile’s eyes finally snap towards him. “You… built this place?” 

Joe shrugs a broad shoulder. “ _Helped_. Someone had to keep the lights on.” Laughing, he points at a particularly high beam across from them, “Damn near broke my neck installing those big ass skylights. If you look hard enough, I bet the indent from my big ass head is still there.”

Clearing his throat, Joe hands her a gold card with a small smile on his lips, looking lazily rugged, like always. Nile hopes she’ll wear immortality as well these guys do. “Nicky said, and I quote: ‘just let her use it all up’.” 

Nile looks at the gold card, then up at him, gaping like a fish. “No way. I, I can’t—” 

“You can, actually.” Joe takes her hand and slots the card atop her palm, winking cheekily. “Miss Rivers.” 

She flips the card then, and sure enough, her name—well, her _alias_ —is engraved on there. _Sahara Rivers_. One of her many, many new lives. 

Unlike that time in Mumbai, Joe stays with her throughout the day, commenting on clothes she buys (which Joe carries, like a right gentleman), laughing when she gets herself a game console and hugs it close to her chest like a doll. He gets a fantasy football game for himself, saying that he _promises_ he won’t hog it. 

Joe regales her about tales of the city, the _bakery Nicky used to work at that used to stand there_ , and, _oh, Nicky proposed to me here_ , and, _shit, I think I got stuck here and froze to death, once. Nicky gave me the_ cold shoulder _for that. Get it?_

A hundred lifetimes of love. _More_ than that. 

Six months into realising her immortality, Nile feels jealousy pit low in her stomach. She imagines the looks Booker shot at Joe and Nicky, the way Andy’s smile sometimes turns down at the sides at the sight of them. 

Nile _understands_. 

She makes Joe lug all her shit, and he takes whatever she can dish out with a smile on his face, as if there were nowhere else he’d rather be. 

“Hey, Joe,” Nile finds herself saying over a cup of gelato, something Joe insisted she have while they rest their feet on a veranda overlooking the pier. The day is slowly starting to wane, the sunset making way for the bright lights that decorate the streets. 

Joe hums, texting away on his phone, a small, goofy smile on his face. Nile bites her spoon, looking at him with her chin on her hand. Joe looks up at her when she doesn’t continue, before taking a picture of her like that, fingers working fast to send it to whoever he’s texting. 

Probably Nicky. 

Nile would protest, on behalf of Andy, but Andy’s not here, and this is the first time in so long that she hasn’t felt like she _needs to do something_. 

“Nicky says you look cute,” Joe says after a while. 

Nile scrunches her nose. Joe smiles some more. 

“Joe, have you and Nicky ever… had a fight?” 

The older man looks at her as if she’s asked something weirder than the possibility of being dead and then being resurrected. “You know how we met, kid. We killed each other… give or take a week.” 

“No, I mean, have you guys always been together, like this? No break ups, no nothing?” 

“Nicky would have to divorce me about, uh,” He begins counting with his fingers, and Nile scoffs out a laugh when he passes by ten and moves on to fifteen, eyebrows pulled low in deep thought. “Sixteen times. Across as many countries before he can even think about _breaking up_ with me.”

Nile swirls the little spoon around in the gelato. “Even my mom and my dad fought. Dad even left for a few days, too cool off. Nothing like that?” 

“Well, there was this one time… before we settled here, actually. Andy was with Noriko, so it was just me and Nicky. It was during the plague. We signed up to help, but this was Nicky’s _home_. A few months in, well.” 

Joe takes a deep breath, “It was the first time he’d…” Joe’s eyes begin to glaze over, his fingers tapping on top of the table. “Long story short, I forced him to leave. With me. The moment we got far enough to not worry about the plague, I left. No break up, no divorce, I just… left.” 

**_There’s something he’s not telling me_** , Nile thinks, then:

“No shit,” Nile can’t even begin to— _parse_ what he just didn’t tell him, but she knows enough to _know_ what he meant. She feels anger, then. How could he _do that_ , to Nicky, of all people? How could _you leave someone behind_? 

“ _No shit_ indeed.” Joe grunts, sitting up on his chair, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out an honest-to-god _vape_. 

Nile makes a face.

“What?”

“A vape?” Nile asks. “Nicky should divorce you because of _that_ alone.” 

“But he won’t,” Joe winks, taking a long pull from the offending object. “And I won’t let him.” 

She still doesn’t understand a single lick of _Joe and Nicky_ , but with the way he says it, like it isn’t even a _possibility_ , she’s… reassured, for some reason.

“Oh, and don’t think you’ve gotten away with not taking me home, Joe.” 

**

Joe and Nicky’s house is seated on the Gulf, overlooking the Ligurian Sea like an old lighthouse. Getting there was beautiful, but being there was even more beautiful. 

The night passes by in a blur, with Joe ushering her into a huge fucking Disney-princess ass room, telling her to dress up and come to downstairs at _the strike of twelve_. 

Nile feels the urge to roll her eyes, then, realising that she’s all alone, does so. 

“This room is bigger than our house…” Nile breathes to herself, marveling at the arching ceilings and the honest-to-god _chandelier_ . When she makes her way to the _en suite bathroom_ —thinking, if they had this much dough, then why the hell did Andy have her checking into dingy ass _hostels_?—surprised to find a bath drawn out for her. 

On the sink, she spots a little lavender card: with Nicky’s telltale, looping handwriting on it. It just says _I made your favourite!_ and nothing else. 

She, predictably, falls asleep in the bath. 

**

Nicky was known to throw grand parties, though as time passed and the ability to retain singular moments to immortality began to flourish, he’d stopped, keeping his little parties strictly to the four (five, six) of them.

Andy used to like them, wild as she is. Nicky knows that Booker despises them, no matter what he says, and Joe loves having himself a great time. 

“Do you think I’ve gone overboard?” Nicky asks, crossing his arms over his chest as he ponders the state of the gardens, smaller than the actual hall they used to host parties in, cleared out save for the singular table situated and near flush against the fountain, laden with food that Nile’s talked about wanting, and food that Nicky _knows_ she likes. 

Even the piano’s been dusted, sitting underneath the _belvedere_ , ready at Andy’s discretion. 

Joe comes up to him and takes Nicky’s hands to guide them around his shoulders, humming an Italian song he’d learned during the first world war. His own palms run along the waist of Nicky’s trousers, pulling him close against the curve of his body, making a happy noise when Nicky sighs, leaning his torso against Joe. 

“This can’t be easy for her,” Nicky murmurs. “She’s a _baby_.” 

“That _baby_ ,” Joe mocks his words lovingly, pinching at the fat that spills a bit over Nicky’s pants, “Is a twenty-five year old ex-marine, whom, might I add, single-handedly saved our sorry asses from that _dweeb_ Merrick.” 

Nicky frowns against the skin of Joe’s neck, “Yes, but—” 

“No buts.” Joe leans his cheek against the side of Nicky’s head, savouring the familiar press of elaborate plaits keeping his hair in place. “Nile doesn’t need to be treated like a child. Andy plucked her from the heart of a warzone, _habibi_.” 

“That doesn’t mean it always has to be a warzone for her, _Yusuf_.” Nicky pulls away then, wrapping his arms around himself as if to stave off a chill. “It _can’t_ always be.” 

Being like they are, doing the things they do, it would be surprising if it didn’t _stay_ . All of them have seen far too much bloodshed and war that it _should_ impede their way of living. 

For some, it does. 

Nicky’s mind strays to Booker, the glint of his silver hip flask burnt behind his eyelids, the way he cuts his son’s names into the flesh of his thighs just to watch them scab over. Andy, who can’t get a good night’s sleep without screaming for a woman who she believes she abandoned, drowning herself over and over just to assuage the guilt she feels.

The way Joe sits for hours at a time outside their little Malta apartment, hand clutched around an old radio, thinking of the men he’d comforted through their deaths after he realised he could do _nothing_. 

The way Nicky still wakes up in a cold sweat, his hands tight around Joe’s neck, asking him to repent for all his sins against a God who lets wars and slaughters be sacrificed in his name. 

Nile is a child, _innocent_ , compared to them.

Is it so bad that Nicky wants her to hold onto that just a little bit more?

“ _Nicolo,”_ Joe sighs, hugging Nicky from behind, nosing at his jaw in apology. 

“ _Yusuf,_ _amore_.” With a smile, he leans his head against Joe’s, “You know, maybe this is God’s way of giving us our own child.” 

His lover makes a face, before making a sound as if he conceded. Nicky tugs playfully at his beard. 

“I mean, if you _want_ a baby—” 

“You _stop_ ,” Nicky slaps at Joe’s wandering digits, a smile on his face as they sway lazily, looking at the dark, endless sea. “Amorous bastard.”

**

Andy shows up a good twenty minutes before twelve, her hair pulled up into an elaborate bun and dressed in a suit that complimented both her figure and her cleavage. Joe whistles at her, winking like the tart he is as he swoops her into his arms to kiss her cheek. 

“The guest of honour?” 

Joe snorts. “She probably drowned in the bath by now. I draw such _great_ baths, after all.” 

“Please,” Nicky scoffs from the buffet table, fussing over the arrangement of the food. “You twist a few knobs to get hot water and throw a bath bomb in.” 

“But you like the baths that I draw, _mio angelo_.” 

Nicky raises an elegant eyebrow at him, “Usually, _you_ are a feature of said baths.” 

“Alright,” Andy groans, cutting them off, “We get it, Joe’s dick is big, happy wife, happy life, and all that fucking bullshit, Jesus fucking _wept_ , shut the fuck _up_.”

“All this and she _still_ sticks around.” Joe comments at Nicky, who narrows his eyes before he pops a meatball into his mouth. 

His husband hums, savouring the meatball, eyes closed and eyebrow raised in pleasant surprise before replying, “A masochist, our Andromache is.”

“You’re insufferable.” 

Nicky turns to Andy then, letting the woman fold him into her arms, his own coming up underneath her armpits to hug her tighter. 

Nicky hums into Andy’s hair. “Nile must be done by now.” 

Before he can settle into the hug, Andy pinches his ass, “ _Culo_ ,” Nicky gasps, slapping at Andy’s fingers, but not letting go, simply because Andy won’t let him. 

So when she does, Joe is immediately at his side, arm looping lightly around Nicky’s waist. “You wanna get our girl?” He asks Andy, who rolls her eyes but turns on her heels, walking the all too familiar steps of _their_ home. 

**

Nile is standing in front of a huge painting in the middle of one of the many corridors in the _Genoa_ manse, hands tight on the small of her back, hair pulled into an elegant curtain of braids. 

_Must’ve taken her awhile_ , Andy thinks, stopping at her shoulder and saying nothing. 

The huge painting is of Nicky, back during the 1500s, maybe. Andy remembers having been here with Booker, the two of them raiding Nicky’s wine collection as Nicky got fawned over while Joe looked on in avid jealousy. Andy also remembers laughing at Joe’s expense when the painting turned out to be some raunchy thing with half of Nicky’s clothes nowhere to be seen. 

“I think it’s by uh, Caravaggio?” 

“I know.” Nile makes a humming noise. “Looks like that Bacchus painting.” 

“You’re a nerd about art, aren’t you?”

“You were there for the Italian Renaissance, Andy. Hell, for _all_ of it, even. You’re not fascinated with this?” 

Andy begins shaking her head, laughter spilling from her mouth. “It all bleeds together after a while.” 

Not for Nicky and Joe, it seems. Andy looks up at the painting again, hanging proudly but hidden from general view. There are another dozen of these, in this house. Paintings of Joe and Nicky, together, apart, sometimes in positions she’d rather not see. 

When Andy comes here, it reminds her. Milestones for every century they’ve lived. But sometimes, it feels like a tomb. At least she doesn’t have to rely on wars to remember what year she’s in. 

Somewhere in this house is a ratty painting from the twelve-hundreds, with the four of them on there, severe and _old_. Joe sometimes pretends that the man in the paintings is an ancestor, just for kicks. Andy avoids it like she avoided the plague. 

“What’s the story about this one, then?” Nile tips her chin at the Caravaggio painting. 

Andy shrugs. “It surprised me that they brought you here, and not Naples.” She says, instead. “They usually never come here.” 

“Genoa’s pretty. Nicky came from here?” 

The older woman nods. “It’s _home_.” A sardonic smile, aimed at the painting, then at Nile. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Kinda tacky,” Nile tells her, hooking her arm around Andy’s. Andy bends her elbow so Nile’s hand would settle comfortably on the crook of it, an action practiced for thousands of years. “Sort of doesn’t suit them.”

Andy shakes her head. _Home_ suited Joe and Nicky more than it did for any of them. 

**

“Holy _shit_.” Nile breathes. “What the fuck?” 

Nicky is beaming, “Happy birthday!” 

“That’s a _four tier cake_.” 

“Surprise!” 

Nile sputters, “Is that—? That’s American—? _Popeye’s_? There are tacos. And IKEA meatballs?” 

“There is also _Stolichnaya_ and iced tea.” Nicky dimples at her, coming close to let her bury herself against him, a huge smile on her young face. 

“Wait, _stoli_? How’d you know I liked vodka?” _How’d you guys know it was my birthday_ , should have been the question, but at this point, she doesn’t really care about what they do in their free time. 

“Lucky guess,” Joe swoops in—it seems like he’s always swooping in, handsome bastard that he is—and presses a kiss to the side of Nile’s head. “It was originally bait for Andy to come.”

Andy herself has already gone to pour herself a finger or two of the vodka, shoving her hand into the ice bucket and dropping a good half dozen in the glass. She looks undeterred by them accusing her of the possibility of not showing up. 

Maybe it’s a running gag, an inside joke. One that Nile will get in on the years to come. 

“I wish Booker was here.” 

Nicky smiles, sadly, hugging Nicky tighter. Joe scoffs, but says nothing. 

“Oh,” Andy exclaims after downing her drink, “here.” 

She tosses Nile a set of keys after she and Nicky have peeled away from each other. Nile grips them underneath her finger’s pads. Some of them are new, some old. The keys were hanging from a croissant keychain. 

“Keys. Safehouses. Ask Nicky for a map.” When Nile frowns at being spoken down to as if she was a kid, Andy winks at her, sitting on the piano’s bench. She says nothing more as she begins playing the instrument, the gardens filling with somewhat upbeat, happy music. Nile doesn’t know who wrote it, but it’s beautiful. 

Andy smiles. Nicky feeds Joe a meatball from the side of the table, and Nile gathers up a crunchy taco into her hand. Eating a _taco_ in a _villa_ given to Nicky by _Lorenzo de’ Medici_ , sitting in front of the _sea_. 

In the middle of this grand mansion, with Andy filling the gardens with her music, Nicky and Joe swaying along, and Nile eating the first taco she’s had since eight months ago, all of them dressed as if they were going to a fancy party, a smile creeps up her face. 

_Happy birthday_ , indeed. 

**ALASKA, JUST BECAUSE.**

A year after they all meet, Nile settles alone in Alaska. 

No Nicky, no Joe, and certainly no _Andy_. 

No, they were on a super important mission, somewhere so _secret_ that they just left Nile without even a single word said, a single word written. 

Nile huffs as she walks up to the apartment, hugging her parka tighter around herself. She’s never experienced winter—and _autumn_ , because that’s how long they’ve dumped her here for—in Alaska, but apparently, it _hurts_. 

“God, fuck,” Nile stomps her way inside, getting rid of the snow on the bottom of her boots and miserably toeing them off, Then it’s a mad scramble for the thermostat, cursing as she shoves off her mittens to get to the tiny little buttons. 

Nile groans when the apartment roars to life, slowly growing warmer by the minute. She shivers and takes out the mail from inside her jacket, before she sheds off her layers, absentmindedly taking a packet of Korean spicy noodles from Joe’s stash and putting on some coffee. 

Random bills, bills, some more bills, an actual mailed subscription form for Cosmopolitan… 

Nile tosses it on top of the little patchwork table that’s probably existed since the ‘30s, thanks to Joe. 

Humming herself a little song, she gets to cooking the _Samyang_ that she could never eat while Joe was around, since the man’s a hog and a spice hound. 

Nile moans a little when the hot, spicy broth of the instant noodles hit her tongue, leaning on the kitchen sink as she tears her way a little guiltily through her pilfered noodles. 

“Andy taught you how to fly a plane, right?” 

Nile nods. “Yep,” she mumbles around a mouthful of noodles, “In the Philippines.” 

“ _Ci stà_ ,” Nicky coughs wetly, “Can you take us to Siberia?” 

“Siberia, like in Russia?” Nile finally looks to the side, her mouth still stuffed with noo—" _Nicky_?” 

“Hello, _tesoro_.” 

“Nicky, you’re—why do you look like shit? Why are you here? Aren’t you— _where’s Joe_? _Andy_?” 

“They tried to drown me in the Atlantic Ocean,” A grunt as Nicky shifts into the light, showing Nile just how busted up he looks, “I need help to get back to Siberia, and they’re in a supermax prison… near the Ural Mountains.” 

“Where are we even going to get a _plane_?” 

“Do not worry about that,” Nicky groans, eyes slipping closed, “Just let me have a… _come cazzo si chiama…_? Fucking… _riposo…_ ” 

Nile stands there, stolen noodles in her hands, and an impending rescue mission in the morning. 

**

“ _Buonasera_!” Nicky is all smiles as if he wasn’t left to drown in the Atlantic Sea as they walk up into a deserted looking hangar in the middle of Virginia, six hours later. 

A tall man with a goatee pokes his head out of what seems to be the guts of a Boeing, smiling toothily and all but picking Nicky up off the ground when they come close enough. 

“Nicky! What brings you to my, er, humble abode?” 

Nicky smiles, visibly putting on the charm as he places his hands on the man’s impressive fucking biceps. Not that she’d tell that to anyone, let alone Joe. “I need a plane, Ocelot.” 

“You know I’d give you one, Nick—” Nile watches Nicky’s jaw tick at the _nickname_ , hiding her smile as she coughs into her hand. The man slaps the Boeing’s nose, “But these babies are spoken for.” 

“Aw,” Nile actually feels like she’s being used as an accessory to the crime as Nicky’s smile turns something sickly sweet, “Just the one plane, Ocelot. We’re always good for it.” 

“Nick, look. I’m sorry.” 

Nicky makes a displeased noise, and before either one of them can blink, Nicky is clocking the man across the jaw, laying him out in one punch. 

“ _Maledizione_. Sorry, Ocelot.” He _sounds_ sorry, but Nicky doesn’t really _look_ sorry. 

Nicky pushes the man’s unconscious body to the side, making sure he’s out of the way. “I knew I shouldn’t have married Joe in America,” He murmurs bitterly, flapping his hand, “My man’s a fucking gossip. Get in the plane, Nile.”

In less than thirty minutes, they’re airborne, Nicky sitting in the co-pilot’s seat and muttering a quick prayer. 

“Where am I going, exactly?” Nile asks once they’re over the Atlantic Ocean, “And Andy never taught me how to fly through a fucking _blizzard_.”

Nicky smiles at her and says, in the most reassuring tone she’s ever heard, “Just get us over the mountain.” 

**RUSSIA, BUT ONLY FOR A LITTLE BIT.**

Thankfully, he doesn’t make her jump out of the plane. 

Thankful, because this plane doesn’t look like it could pass muster with the FAA, and they still need a way out of this snowy wonderland once they break Andy and Joe out.

They land a good distance away from the supermax, some high security prison they call Кубик льда. She can’t even wrap her head around pronouncing it, no matter how many times Nicky says it. All that she knows is that Joe and Andy are stuck between a rock and the Siberian tundra, probably held hostage for corroborating with _capitalist pigs_ , and that Кубик льда means ‘ice cube’. 

Perched up high, almost with a whole view of the prison, Nicky hands her his sniper rifle, this one as white as their surroundings. She looks up at him, bewildered, then down at the rifle, mouth opening to demand an explanation. 

Nicky checks his pistol, screwing on the silencer with quick motions, half his face hidden underneath a white mask. His broadsword hangs from its rightful place in a dark leather scabbard on his hip, the only dark spot on his person. “Have you ever been in a prison, Nile?” 

“N-no, why?” 

“I have. _You_ sit tight up here and cover us. Stay on the radio, watch your six, and take account of the wind. Don’t shoot us. We’ll see you in two hours.” He presses a kiss onto her forehead, and at the deep frown on her face, she cups her cheek. “Trust me, _tesoro_.” 

And then slithers down the ravine, disappearing into the thick blizzard that stands between them and the prison, Nile’s protests falling on deaf ears. 

She really needs to talk to Nicky about his _hands on_ approach to things. 

Audibly swallowing, Nile braces herself, lying prone on the ground. In only a few seconds, she is hugged by the snow, completely hiding her from sight.

When she peers into the scope, it takes her a few minutes to find Nicky, but when she does, he is already inside the chain link fence, over the thick walls and rapidly making his way through guards and prisoners. 

She keeps her finger straight and _off_ the trigger, shivering at the thought of giving Nicky away. _She_ should be the one down there; she doesn’t know what the _fuck she’s doing_. But she keeps her eye on Nicky, reporting guard rotations and whisper-yelling warnings when she can. 

Nile loses sight of Nicky thirty minutes in, and her heart thunders, slamming harshly against her rib cage. She looks behind her once before peering back into the sights, muttering curses when she still can’t see Nicky. 

“Nicky, where are you? Out.” 

Nothing. 

“ _Nicky_.” 

Static. Then, “There’s a big _stronzo_ up there, do you see?” 

“Positive. Big guy in a big parka?” 

“Yes. He’s the Warden. I need you to kill him.” 

Nile’s mind reels. She’s never shot a sniper rifle before, let alone in a _blizzard_ in the _Siberian tundra_. The guy’s maybe a few hundred metres away, a shot she could make with an AR if she needs to. But all she has is a pistol, a Bowie, and Nicky’s rifle. 

“Negative. I-I can’t make that shot, Nicky.” Nile grits through her teeth, the chill beginning to make its way through her clothes. “I haven’t—I haven’t done this before.”

A few seconds of silence, then Nicky’s voice pours warmly through the cold blizzard, “Okay. Alright. Can you shoot the flood light over the bridge?” 

It’s farther than the guy Nicky originally wanted her to shoot, but she’ll take a stagnant target over a moving one any day. 

“I can make that,” Nile breathes, “No sweat.” 

She could hear the smile in Nicky’s voice as he checks in. “You’ll be fine, _tesoro_. Trust me. Going dark.”

Nile braces herself, takes a deep breath, and aims a little to the left. She’s sure when she pulls the trigger, but she’s only _relieved_ when the glass shatters and the light goes out.

One thing that Nile has always hated when she was in the Marines was the fucking _waiting_. Not that she wanted to get out there and shoot people, no; the fact that there was a chain of command she had to follow, like a dog, the fact that she was there because she had no other choice. She couldn’t _wait_ , because the world would have run her over otherwise.

It really seems like the world’s still shat on her, though. 

“Fuck this,” Nile murmurs, getting up from prone and up to her knees. “Fuck _this_ ,” 

Something in her peripherals move, and she hikes the rifle up against her shoulder, quickly peering into the scope. Across from her and directly in her cross hairs is Nicky, a shallow slash high against his cheekbone, healing before her eyes. The Warden’s got him pinned against the railing of the bridge, the only thing holding him from a twenty foot drop. 

Nile growls, pressing her cheek tight against the stock, breathing deeply, aiming a little bit to the left and _up_ , before letting herself press the trigger. 

It doesn’t hit, and the recoil tosses her back on her ass, but Nile hopes that the bullet whirring by is enough to buy Nicky some time. Shoulder sore and dignity bruised, Nile picks up the rifle, painstakingly reloading as she curses Nicky for using bolt-action instead of semi-automatic. 

By the time she finds Nicky again, the Warden is laying in a pool of blood on the bridge and she can only see Nicky’s retreating back disappearing into double doors. Nile is jarred by the dismissal, the complete nothingness that is uncharacteristic of Nicky.

Nile lays prone, keeps her sights on the door, and waits.

**

Two hours, he said. 

It’s _been_ two hours since he left Nile here alone, and she’s starting to think she’s going to catch hypothermia. With the weather and her lying stationary for hours, she’s surprised she hasn’t turned into a popsicle yet. 

One more hour and she’s busting them all out _herself_. 

**

Thirty minutes into Nile’s vigil, the comm’s static damn near gives her a heart attack, and Andy’s voice pours through, strained but alive. " _Keep an eye out for us._ ” 

She wastes no time getting closer, using her pistol to shoot the men running about like headless chickens, making a break for the opened chain link fence—and, as if Nicky had already foreseen that Nile was going to be a little shit and follow down any way—and the open gates, entering and shooting the first head she sees. 

Joe and Nicky, with Andy tight between them, working like a well-oiled machine, ducking, weaving and shooting. Nicky in his white camo and the other two ragged and bloody, as if they’d been killed over and over. 

They probably have been, judging by the state of their clothes. 

Nicky shoves all of them behind a wall, grunting in exertion. 

Nile smiles as she jogs up to them, shooting a quick one-two at a man in an orange beret charging at them. 

Andy looks at her, then at Nicky, opening her mouth as if to say something, but then snaps it shut. 

She palms at her wounds, grunting, “Where’s the fucking plane?” 

Nile’s smile drops, and unease curls up her spine. 

“We—we left it a few miles back.” 

Nicky lets go of Joe and passes them to Nile, shooting her a small smile. “I’ll clean up here. I will see you back in America?” 

“You bet,” Joe croaks, sluggishly wrapping his bloody fist around Nicky’s parka. “We gotta… talk.” 

Nicky looks thunderous, unwrapping Joe’s hand from his clothes and disappearing into the throng of guards, sirens blaring overhead. 

Joe closes his eyes. Andy punches his shoulder, muttering something under her breath. Nile lets them catch a breather, curled over them like an ineffective meatshield. 

Nile takes a deep breath, hauls Andy and Joe up, and helps them hobble across the Siberian tundra until they could no longer hear gunshots. 

“Fuck,” Joe admonishes when Nile tosses him onto a seat, poking at one of his many gaping wounds. _Bigger wounds take more time to heal_ , she remembers Booker saying. “ _Fuck_!” 

She actually flinches when Joe’s fist comes in contact with the side of the plane, the metal all but bending underneath his anger. 

Andy ushers her into the pilot’s seat, a first-aid kit already in hand. _Mortal_ , Nile remembers. _She’s mortal now_. 

“Andy—?” 

“Just step on it, kid. Christ.” 

**ALASKA’S STILL COLD. BUT AT LEAST IT’S NOT RUSSIA.**

The apartment, surprisingly, isn’t cramped when they all pour back into it. Save for Nicky, that is. Andy assures her that he’ll be back in a few days or so. 

Nile believes her, but only because loyalty bleeds in their veins the same as immortality does. That, and Nicky would never leave Joe, just as much as Joe would never leave Nicky. 

Speaking of Joe, he’s never seen the man this… lethargic, as if he expects himself to vanish into thin air at any given moment. His lips curl into a harsh sneer when Nile realises she’s left Nicky’s rifle behind, tempered only by Andy’s equally harsh herding, ordering him to keep his shit together. 

Two weeks later, and no one tells her about what happened, still. All she knows is that they’re not taking any contracts any time soon, and this time, it’s _not her fault_. 

Which she would be excited about, if the group didn’t feel as if it would fall and break into tiny little pieces at the slightest bit of pressure. 

Joe has taken to joining her in her room, now, both of them listening to Frank Ocean records from the turntable Andy had thrifted for her a few months back. She’s beginning to carve her own little nook in all parts of the world. 

A turntable and a collection of vinyls in Alaska. A PS4 with stickers of swords on it in Italy. Her own plate on the dish rack in a dingy apartment in Mumbai. Her name, stenciled crookedly into a restaurant table in Budapest after having waited for someone for too long. 

A rifle left on a cliff in the Siberian tundra. 

“ _Hide my tattoos in Shibuya_ …” Joe whispers, stretched out on her bed, socked feet flat on her floors. Frank Ocean thumps through both their ribs, counting down the days for them. 

Nile leans against her wall and sighs deeply. 

“Hey, can I have some of those noodles?” 

Joe pauses from mumbling the lyrics. “Yeah,” he says after a second, “you mind making me some?” 

Nile doesn’t. Joe sits on the floor, his back to the cabinets, twirling his vape across his long fingers. 

_As long as he’s not smoking the damn thing_ , Nile thinks, throwing in the noodles and watching it boil. 

“He’s angry at me.” Joe says out of nowhere. 

_Figures_ , she doesn’t say. She keeps quiet, which is probably for the best, because Joe starts making these noises that sound like he’s crying, and Nile doesn’t want to hear it, or see it—not because she doesn’t care, or because she thinks Joe isn’t capable of human emotions, but because, well—

The dude’s like her dad, okay? It’s unnatural. 

So she shuts up. 

In the end, Joe doesn’t really cry. 

“I made a call. Got him tossed over the Atlantic Ocean and Andy almost killed for it.” He blinks, pressing the heels of his palms on his eyes. “He’s angry because he had to drag you into the middle of it.” 

“I had to know, sooner or later.” Nile says, quietly. 

“Yeah.” Joe nods. “Nicky’s right. You’re not ready.” 

“I really wanna know,” Nile takes a deep breath in before letting it out slowly. “Why you guys seem to think that.” 

Joe’s eyes are red when he looks up at her. “You remember Nicky’s orders?” 

Nile nods. Joe makes a vague motion with his hand, asking her to recollect and report. 

“‘Sit tight up here and cover us’.” 

“And what did you do?” 

Nile glowers. The noodles almost bubble over, but she turns the stove off quickly enough. “I get it. I didn’t _listen_. But you guys aren’t the Marines, _this is different_.” 

“Is it?” Joe sighs. “Andy’s our CO, I’m XO.” He smiles, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Nicky’s the sexy secretary.” 

He leans forward, unlatching his arms and rocking up to his feet, looking over her shoulder to hum at the pot of noodles. “Add more of the spicy shit. Thing is, kid, you’re not just _new_ to this. You don’t _know_ this.” 

Nile grips the handle of the pot until it hurts. “I wa—” 

“In the army, a Marine, I _know_. I know.” Joe takes a pair of chopsticks and swirls the noodles around some. His eyebrows pull down together, as if in deep thought.

His eyes are soft when he leans against the kitchen sink, crossing his arms over his chest, clacking the chopsticks rhythmically. “We’ve been in the Corps, Nicky was a double agent in the Gestapo. Andy triple crossed the KGB and MI6 once. Goddamn, we were there keeping guards off the Sons of Liberty’s asses during the tossing. We’ve lived and died about a hundred thousand times now, Nile, and every time, _it hurts_.” 

“But I know that. I’ve died before.” 

“ _But_ you don’t know how it feels to die knowing you _were wrong_.” He rips open a packet of spice and adds it into the mix. “Knowing people you love keep dying because you made a bad call. Nicky _drowned_ because I made a shit call.”

“He made it better. Saved you and Andy. Took me along.”

Joe looks into her eyes, looking for something. Nile feels as if he didn’t find it when he looks away. “He did.” Joe laughs, tapering off into a sigh. “Wish he didn’t have to drown, though.”

“It was refreshing.” Comes Nicky’s soft, lilting voice as he shuts the door behind him, toeing off his shoes. Nile and Joe stand there, mouths agape. Nicky holds aloft a baggie from the Chinese place a few blocks down. 

He smiles, but even Nile knows all is not forgiven. “I have dumplings.” 

** 

Fourteen dumplings, two heaping bowls of _Samyang_ , and a sloshed Andy having crashed through the door, drunk as a skunk later, Nicky is leaning back against Joe’s chest, running his fingers up and down Joe’s arm. 

_I’m still mad at you_ , _stronzo,_ he’d said, stern as a Pre-K teacher. _Don’t think you are out of the dog house._

Joe had replied, _all right_. 

And that was that. 

Nile has her feet kicked up on Nicky’s lap, head tipped back. 

“Okay,” She says, after a minute. 

Nicky looks up at her. His other hand is threaded through Andy’s. 

“I think I get it, now.” Nile concludes, looking at the three of them. “Why I’m not ready.” 

Now _Joe_ looks up from where he’s dozing off with his head pressed against Andy’s side. Nile scoots nearer, because she _can_ , and lays her head on Nicky’s lap. Nicky stops caressing Joe’s arm to gently play with her locs, a small smile on his face. 

He’s warm. Nile misses her mom and brother with a fierceness that scares her, but with Andy and Nicky and Joe—she realises that they’re _more than enough_ to stave that little fear within her. 

Nile turns her head so she could bury her face into Nicky’s stomach. She wouldn’t want to hurt them, too. 

**SEXILED IN SWEDEN.**

Nicky makes Andy take Nile out for meatballs. 

“Really?” Andy frowns, bracing herself against the doorway like she isn’t about to move. Nicky isn’t above hitting below the belt when Andy’s being disagreeable. “You’re sexiling us?” 

Ever since she’s learned that word from Nile, she hasn’t used anything else to describe Nicky… forcibly asking them to spend some time together. 

“I’m not… _sexiling_ you, I just want to spend some time with my husband. Which I can’t, if you’re _here_.”

Andy levels her blue eyes at him. “You _planned this_ ,” she accuses, a finger pointing insistently at him. “This is _actually_ hurting my feelings, Nicky.” 

“If you do this, I promise to run interference on Copley for two years.” 

The woman’s eyebrow twitches, but otherwise her face is an impenetrable fortress. Nicky dimples at her, tilting his head for effect. 

Andy’s lips turn down into a frown. “Three years, and you make me bread like they used to, in Greece.” 

“Difficult, but not impossible.” He leans up to press a kiss onto Andy’s cheek, to which the woman pretends she isn’t pleased about, “Very diplomatic and altruistic as always, boss.” 

Andy rolls her eyes. “Where’s the brat, anyways?” 

“She’s having her morning run.” Nicky tosses her the keys to their car, winking at her before shutting the door in front of her face. 

The older immortal makes a noise, slamming her fist against the door as she wails, loud enough for their neighbours to hear her clearly. “You can’t just leave me with our child like this, Nicholas! You _bastard_!” 

Nicky sighs. When he doesn’t reply, Andy kicks the door once and curses him in Italian. He waits until the sound of her boots fade in the distance, hugging his robe tighter around himself as he smiles giddily. 

Joe is slumbering on their bed, spread like a starfish across the queen-sized mattress. Nicky tucks his hair behind his ear as he gently sits on the side, the bed dipping beneath his weight. 

Carefully, he runs his hand through the growing hair atop Joe’s head, lovingly scratching at the base of his nape. 

“ _Yusuf, amore_ ,” He calls, pressing a kiss to Joe’s eyelids, his nose, then his lips. His husband’s beard tickles. 

Slowly, Joe smiles underneath his ministrations, the slant of his eyes opening reluctantly against the sunlight that’s pouring in from the windows. 

With a breathy—if a bit stinky—sigh, he places his hands on Nicky’s cheeks, pulling him closer to kiss his lips. Nicky laughs as he swings his leg over Joe’s lap to sit astride him, letting Joe’s little _bello, bello, bello_ lull him into amorous, sleepy relief.

“ _Sabah al-khair_.” Joe rasps, running his hands up and down the length of Nicky’s back as the other man drapes himself over his body, legs tangling. A lover’s embrace, one that Joe will never get tired of waking up to. 

Nicky hums as he presses a kiss to Joe’s adam’s apple, “ _Sabah al-noor_."

“You’re frisky this morning.” Joe tells him, and Nicky squirms until he’s comfortable on top of his husband. 

“Andy’s taken Nile out for meatballs.” 

“Without us?” 

“ _Without us_ , yes.” 

“Aw, I was looking forward to the meatballs.” Joe laughs, yawning widely. Nicky makes a small, retching noise, so Joe immediately presses a kiss onto his lips, licking into his mouth. When they part, Nicky is silent and flushed. 

Joe hugs him tighter, like a teddy bear, closing his eyes as Nicky melts against him. “Tell me what’s on your mind.” 

Nicky presses a kiss to his jaw, slowly climbing up until Joe’s arms are around his waist, cradling him close. 

He pulls away, hands bracing themselves against Joe’s chest, staring into Joe’s deep, black eyes. 

“I‘m thinking,” Nicky drawls, “Paris, 1944.” 

“Ah,” Joe hums, pulling his lover down to brush his nose against Nicky’s, “that was in _public_.” 

“I was thinking more of the acts than the location, _mon amour_.” Nicky smirks, laughing when Joe sighs as if put upon, hiking the robes around Nicky’s legs up his hips, giving his ass a squeeze before sighing into the skin of Nicky’s neck. 

“I’m too tired to have you up against the ruins of Paris, _mon amour_.” 

“Tired, or lazy?” Nicky sits up, grinding himself down his lover’s already hard length, all the while smiling beatifically down at Joe. 

“Both. And, unfortunately, devoid of meatballs.” 

Nicky stops his ministrations and simply sits atop his husband, his face the very picture of passive beauty that those Renaissance artists loved to paint. “If I’d known I’d get this much lip from you, I wouldn’t have woken you up.” 

Joe takes Nicky’s hands in his, bringing them up to his lips for him to kiss. 

Nothing more is said, because with a sigh and a nudge of the hips, Joe slides into Nicky, the sensation of his man’s warmth making him melt into the bed. 

“Andy was right,” Joe mumbles, hips hitching upward to push the last bit of his length into his lover, “You _were_ planning this, you minx.” 

Nicky rises up, once and slowly, before seating himself again, making both of them moan at the sensation. The sunlight is kind on their skins, even though Joe’s hands aren’t, gripping and leaving bruises on Nicky’s hips. 

They stay like that, unmoving, relishing this quiet moment to themselves, connected in the most intimate of ways. A dance to which the steps are ingrained into their muscles. 

“I love you,” Nicky says, when he inevitably gets impatient, bouncing himself gently against Joe. 

Joe laughs, the action increasing Nicky’s pleasure tenfold. “I love _you_.” He says with a particularly harsh upthrust, pushing Nicky farther up against his body. 

When he finally sits up, bending his legs behind Nicky, ushering him to the curve of his body. Nicky mindlessly wraps his long legs around Joe’s waist, humming an equally mindless song into his lover’s ear. 

The first time they made love— _made love_ , not _ruthlessly fucked_ —it was a good lifetime since they’d met on the battlefields of Tunisia. It was also the hundredth and final time they would find each other after years of searching. 

Nicky was a different man; he was a respected physician in a village that Joe never would have gone to had his mercenary ways not taken him there. 

He was blond, still, though his hair was shorn close to his scalp and his face clean shaven, dressed plainly. So plain, in fact, that it took Joe a few days to recognise him. 

Joe was there for him. To bring this physician to his Lord, back in Málaga. 

Nicky had declined. Said that he would not sacrifice the many for the elite few. Fearful and cornered, though never subservient, Nicky had killed _Gonzáles_ —the man he’d been trying to be until he blundered into Nicky’s rural town—then and there. 

That night, he’d sworn off the King’s crest and made love to _Nicolo di Genova_. 

Joe breathes in his lover’s scent now, that immortal tang of lilacs and leather and metal polish, keening as Nicky squeezes tightly around him, begging him in not so many words to _pick up the pace_. 

Those lives were lifetimes behind them now. 

Joe is startled out of his early morning musings when Nicky cruelly twists his nipple, biting at his jaw. He pushes up and tips Nicky onto his back, trapping those damnable, clever hands with one of his own. 

“Behave,” Joe admonishes, thrusting shallowly. “I’ll give you what you need soon enough.” 

**

“So,” Nile begins, sitting in the beat up Hyundai with some meatballs in her lap, still dressed in her running gear. “Sexiled, huh?” 

Andy nods, chewing away at her own meatballs. She points at herself. “Professional third-wheel here.”

Nile nods. “Well, they’re in love.” She shrugs, and Andy raises an eyebrow at her. “What? Love makes you do stupid stuff.” 

The older woman’s lips slant in an expression of displeasure. Remembers the time she pawned Nicky off to China so she could take Noriko sight-seeing. 

“See?” Nile’s voice chimes. Sometimes, Andy wonders if Nicky is wrong when he says that Nile isn’t ready. For the kind of life they live, no one can ever be _ready_. But then she spits out shit like that, and you realise: _yeah, I’ll let her take her time_. “You understand.” 

“I guess I do.” Andy relinquishes. “Finish up your meatballs and maybe we can ruin their morning.” 

One day, Nile’s gonna fall in love, too. And Andy can only hope it won’t be as short and reluctant as Booker and his wife’s, or tragic and guilt-filled like Andy and Noriko’s. 

She hopes it’ll be like hers and Achilles’. 

But most of all, she hopes it’ll be like _Joe and Nicky’s._

**Author's Note:**

> firstly, keep up the good work, fic writers. all the new content is actually making me feel happiness.
> 
> secondly, i'll be back to post. like i said, i'm gonna roll out some porn. though not all at once. also, yes, i've read the comics. i like blond nicky
> 
> thirdly: the only reason why im not popping these fics out like an overexcited chicken is bc ive been playing videogames. that bein said, the russia bit is based off a videogame. first bastard to get it gets a fic 
> 
> p.s. u guys want my twt so yall can send in prompts n shit ? EDIT: it’s [@silmarrillion](https://twitter.com/silmarrillion?s=21)
> 
> pps. you know what i fucking hate ? when the thing does the thing where it puts spaces between my fucking italics. im old and im done with it.


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